How to Start a Flooded Mazda RX8 in 15 minutes

The Mazda RX8 is a great performance car for a relatively low cost. Rather than your conventional engine, the RX8 has a rotary engine and as you may know, rotary engines can suffer from flooding relatively easily. Once flooded they can seem impossible to start, but in the article below I will show you how to start a flooded Mazda RX8 without the huge mechanic bill.

On this occasion the flooded engine was caused from moving the car from one location on the drive to another, without letting it warm up enough.

How to start a flooded Mazda Rx8 in 15 minutes

De-flood Method

First we are going to disconnect the power from the fuel pump and then crank the engine over to clear out some of the additional fuel that is in the engine, then we will reconnect the fuel pump and jump start the car to get it started. Unless you are very lucky, it is unlikely to start on the first try, and could take 10-15 iterations of this process to get it started. Make sure you leave around 30 seconds between cranking the engine over to allow the starter motor to cool down.

Step 1 – Charge Up

Put the car on charge before hand to ensure it has maximum power to crank the engine over.

Step 2 – Remove Rear Seat

Remove the rear passenger seat by pulling the base of the seat upwards to reveal the the fuel pump cover.

Step 3 – Remove Cover

Use a phillips screw driver to undo the 4 screws on the cover and lift off the cover.

Step 4 – Look at the fuel pump

Here you see the fuel pump and the connector that we will be disconnecting.

Step 5 – Set up jump leads

Set the car up for a jump start. I used heavy duty jump leads as you may be cranking the car over for around 15 minutes on and off, use another powerful car for the jump start, and make sure the other car is running at the time of jumping.

If you don’t have another car you, might be able to get away with a mobile power bank. I have successfully done this a few times.

Step 6 – Disconnect and Crank

Back in the driver’s seat, ensure the car is out of gear and remove the fuel pump connector from the fuel pump. Once removed crank the car over with the clutch depressed for 30 seconds to clear out the excess fuel from the engine.

Step 7 – Keep Cranking and connect pump

Whilst still cranking the engine, plug the fuel pump back in, apply 1/3 throttle and continue to crank the engine with the clutch depressed for 30 seconds. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until the car starts to fire up. When the car begins to catch, don’t let go of the key until you’re sure it will stay running. It can take many attempts to get it started. See the video below for an idea of how the process looks.

Step 8 – Take the car for a run

Once running take the car on a good 20-minute run ensuring all fuel is burned off out of the exhaust properly. Fixed.

Recommendations – Get a Boost Pack

I found that I was getting a bit nervous of stalling the RX-8 whilst out and about. Without a jump car it was impossible to get the car started again. But with a mobile power bank I have been able to get the car going again. It might not work in all instances, but you can crank the car over around 20-30 times with these packs for are a great help.

Don`t you think this advice is a little irresponsible!
To suggest making and breaking the 12 volt supply to the petrol tank whilst live (cranking) is not the thing to do, a random spark and any possible petrol fumes do not mix believe me!
This method is totally unnecessary when you can just floor the throttle or remove the fuel pump fuse.
Someone needs to brush up on safety procedures before tinkering with a petrol tank.

please don’t think i’m stupid, i can’t get the fuel pump fuse out-literally. I can pul the rest, is there something special about the blue? Laugh later…I’m not paying someone to fix my car, i’m trying.
(front right blue fuse)
???

my rx8 don’t want to start and am not sure if its flooded or compression loss. and my challenge is that I don’t have the tester and mazda Namibia wont do it because I imported my car from UK. but all I know is I had a misfire, and when checked it was 2 coils dead,and the mechanic used to start the engine with 2 coils but later it couldn’t start, when new coils came the car couldn’t start.

I can confirm that an RX8 231ps (mine’s a 2007 vintage) will disable the fuel pump if you fully depress the accelerator pedal BEFORE turning the ignition key. The beauty of this, is that any failed start can be followed by a purge (pedal to the floor before ignition) and then try again. I did 3×6 second purges, then the 4th time I’d do a 1 second purge then release the accelerator pedal whilst cranking which would cause some firing. The successful start required continually cranking whilst the engine revved which I think is superbly illustrated in your video. Thank you for posting this which was a great help (though I didn’t have to disconnect anything).

I’ve spent two days trying to start my 04 reg RX8 following the advice given. Must have cranked the engine in total for about 2 hours on each day, even Green Flag had to give up. Interested in the tow method but I’m parked facing downhill and without the engine running means I couldn’t brake if I had to. Can anyone help?
I’m getting desperate now!!
Cheers.

No it’s not fired at all. It’s cranking over very strongly. I don’t think there’s a secondary issue as it was running perfectly before I moved it just 100yds for my son before turning the engine off. I know now that I shouldn’t have done that and that I’m to blame for it flooding. I think also that if there was a secondary issue, then Green Flag would have found it. Green Flag said to just keep on trying (and then left) but I’m worried we could burn out the starter motor.???

I agree be extra carefully to give the starter time to cool. I have ran this process a few times now and sometimes its 5 minutes, I think 30 mins was the worst.

Other things that might help I know there is two types of start motors available, one with more power, might be worth checking which one you have in case you can upgrade both for now and issues in the future.

I would just keep trying. Video it and send me a link, I would be happy to see if I can assist.

Thanks Paul. I’ll try starting it again later on and will video it. How do I send you a link though? Not done this before on this site. Thanks for your interest/help.
Cheers,
Roger
Email: [email protected]

Hi, my 2009 rx8 is flooded. It’s automatic and I was wondering if this procedure would still work for it? Do i just keep the gas depressed the whole time while cranking and then plug the fuel pump back in and continue cranking? Please help. Thank you!